Category: Product of the Week

I’m sure you foodies have heard about Mymouné, an all-natural specialties producer, including jams, preserves, syrups, seasonings, flower waters and other refined products. Well, I was so happy to learn their news yesterday!

Beirut, 6th August 2015

Mymoune celebrates the winning of two Great Taste Awards

Mymoune has been presented with a much-desired UK Great Taste Award for two of its products: Pomegranate Molasses (Gold – 2 Stars) and Apricot Preserve (Gold – 1 Star).

In total, Mymoune has been the proud winner of 14 Great Taste Awards since 2005. Youmna Goraieb, co-founder of Mymoune, said: ‘We are thrilled to win these awards. All of Mymoune’s hard-working team members are proud to see our products make their way from the picturesque little village of Ain-El-Kabou in Mount-Lebanon, to the podium of the most prestigious international contest and to the shelves of the best fine food stores in Lebanon, Europe and the US’.

This prestigious competition has been described as the ‘Oscars’ of the specialty food industry, and the ‘epicurian equivalent of the Booker prize’.

In 2015, around 10,000 products entered the competition and were scrutinised by a panel of more than 400 independent judges over a period of 3 months, including ‘blind tastings’. The awards have been given out for excellence in taste, texture and flavour.

Here are the benefits of their Pomegranate molasses which I love to add in salad dressings or even to add a sweet taste to baked ingredients.

Growing up, most of us had the only notion of maple syrup as being the ‘Aunt Jemima‘ one that we used to pour endlessly between each fat pancake on happy Saturday mornings. I’m okay with Aunt Jemima-ing pancakes from time to time (even though I do it very rarely), but now that we’re all grown up and are very careful about what we eat and the ingredients we use, we mostly prefer pure and natural sweeteners. Here lies the big difference between the fun maple syrup we used to have and the healthier option that is more natural than artificial sugar.

Natural maple syrup is extracted from trees and it is largely produced in Canada (Quebec, to be more specific). Apart from being had with pancakes, waffles, porridge, and pain perdu (click here for our legendary pain perdu recipe), natural maple syrup can be used as a natural sweetener in cakes or other baked goods. It is full of manganese and zinc, two very important antioxidants and optimal immune system functioning.

Grant it, it costs more than the artificial maple syrups at the supermarket, but isn’t our health worth it? We’re increasingly being exposed to new technologies and chemicals. It is therefore becoming an absolute must we pay attention to everything that enters our body.

You can find pure maple syrup at New Earth Store in Ashrafieh and in the organic sections of most large supermarkets in Lebanon. I loved the Buckwud brand.

Pure from tree to table

Here’s a healthy flour-less and lactose-free breakfast recipe on which you can freely pour pure maple syrup. It was given to us by a good friend who’s lactose and gluten intolerant but finds a way to continue eating the food she likes by solely replacing ingredients.

Natural Maple Syrup Healthy Pancakes

Ingredients:

1.5 cup oat flour

1.5 cup rice flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 bananas, mashed

1.5 cup almond milk

2 tsp natural maple syrup

In a bowl, mix all of the ingredients and whisk until combined. Grease a pan, cook your pancakes, then have them with pure maple syrup and bananas on top. Delicious and guilt-free!

The goals of the program are to “enhance economic opportunities for small businesses, women, and youth”, “improve Lebanon’s economic stability, focusing on rural priority areas”, and “upgrade Lebanese value chains to increase their competitiveness in domestic and export markets”.

At Horeca, we were lucky to have a guided visit of all the exhibitors of the above products and we got to meet them all and taste their products.

I especially liked this Carob Honey for many reasons.

Carob is full of health benefits, including being an antioxidant, an antiseptic, improving digestion and lowering cholesterol levels in the blood, regulating blood pressure and helping prevent lung cancer, treating flu and anemia, and fighting against osteoporosis. Apart from all those benefits, it acts as a substitute for cocoa powder or chocolate in cakes and helps thicken baked goods. Add honey to it and you have the most natural sweetener you can ask for. I loved adding it to my balsamic salad dressing.

Just add a tablespoon of Carob Honey to 1.5 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and add it to a simple lettuce, cherry tomatoes and goat cheese salad. You’ll have a delicious meal ready in minutes!

You can find out more about the USAID initiative on their facebook page .

Every time I cook a basic Asian dish, my whole focus is on how to thicken the sauce and make it resemble the texture of what we eat in Asian restaurants without adding a ton of oil. After finding what gives a dish the perfect spicy flavor (refer to Sriracha 😉 ), we recently discovered what makes it unctuous: 1 and only 1 tablespoon of this Sweet Soy Glaze from Kikkoman.

This sauce’s flavor is a great addition to vegetables, chicken or meat-based Asian dishes, spring rolls and other finger foods, and also salad dressings! What it does is basically infuse rich flavors into the meat juices and into the vegetables’ water, giving your dishes an appetizing look and a satisfying taste.

Chipotle peppers are smoke-dried jalapeño. They are made primarily in Chihuahua, Mexico but are also produced in much of Mexico and increasingly in the US.

For Chipotle, the peppers are kept on the plant until they turn deep red and begin to dry out. They are then smoked for days in a sealed smokehouse until completely dry. Some commercial producers use an alternative to smokehouses which consists of gas driers and artificial smoke flavoring. This alternative technique, however, produces a less flavorful chipotle.

In the supermarket, you can find those delicious Chipotle peppers in Abodo sauce and use them for your marinades. Last Saturday, we used them to marinate the chicken for our BBQ. Scroll for the recipe! 🙂

I’ve been eyeing Jessy’s spreads for quite some time, until I finally got to meet her and taste her delicious (and healthy!) peanut butter spread.

Jessy studied and works in Marketing and she’s also a Certified Personal Trainer. She’s into Sports and loves everything healthy. A while ago, she noticed that the peanut butter spreads sold in the market are full of hydrogenated fat and therefore not so good for our bodies. That’s when she decided to make her own peanut butter. After everyone around her had a spoonful and loved it, she took the decision to make it in quantities and sell it. The ingredients Jessy uses are all healthy, authentic and homegrown.

I usually have a spoon of it with my afternoon snack, be it a fruit or a smoothie, but there’s a whole lot more you can pair it with. Jessy’s suggestions are written on a small paper tied to the jar: Pretzels, cookies, bananas, chocolate, apple, jams, and even chicken! She also suggested pairing peanut butter and bananas or dates before heading to work or to the gym as it gives good energy.

I also got a great recipe tip using this delicious peanut butter spread. I’ll be making it for lunch really soon so stay tuned for the full recipe and photos! 🙂

I’ve been watching and reading Jamie Oliver for as long as I can remember. He makes cooking seem so simple and fun and inspires all of us to healthy and flavorsome cooking. As we all know, the secret to a perfect dish is in the spices and seasoning. Two cooks can never produce the same final result as each one of them puts his own touch of spices and seasoning to it all. When I discovered that Jamie Oliver had created those grind mills that are a blend of different spices, I was delighted. You will find great combinations that will make you want to head to the kitchen right away. Plus, they’re the perfect seasoning to light dinners, adding flavor and great satisfaction. This is also made for the lazy ones who need to spice up their basic lunches and dinners, making cooking more simple.

In Beirut, the Jamie Oliver grind mills can be found at TSC Signature.

I’ve been featuring a Design Item of the week for a while now as I’m always on a quest to discover cool things and sharing them on the blog. But since I also constantly discover new foodie products, I will be sharing Design items and foodie products alternatively. This week, the selected product is the legendary Sriracha Sauce.

We discovered Sriracha a few months ago while looking for a spicy Chicken Wings recipe. We stumbled upon one online and we’ve been hooked to it ever since (recipe here). Back then, when we saw something called Sriracha featured in the ingredients, we weren’t really sure it was going to be easy to find. I hadn’t even noticed it was actually the name of the sauce placed on all Asian restaurants’ tables in the world! But we did find it, and now we can’t live without it. It’s become one of our must-haves condiments at home, right next to mustard and ketchup.

Recently, the sauce has become widely famous. More people are aware of its existence and brands even use it as a flavor. Kettle Potato Chips now have a Sriracha flavored bag! What’s more, ketchup, beer, popcorn, lollipops, candy canes and pizza sauces can all be found Sriracha-flavored. This article in Food and Wine confirms it.

So what’s the story behind this sauce?

Sriracha wasn’t born until 1980. It was created by David Tran in Chinatown and was later introduced to the U.S. He made his own hot sauce by hand in a bucket and started selling it out of a van. He refused to adjust his product by making it a less spicy one like most people were suggesting. His answer was:

Hot sauce must be hot. If you don’t like it hot, use less. We don’t make mayonnaise here.

Being a hot sauce freak, I eat almost everything with a bit of Sriracha sauce. For spicy lovers, use it with Edamame, throw it in your salads (in small quantities) or dip chicken wings in it.

You can watch the whole Sriracha production process below (explained by David Tran himself!)